It starts with a simple, oscillating whistle. Then comes the sousaphone, thumping along like a tired but determined heart. If you’ve seen Little Miss Sunshine, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The Winner Is by DeVotchKa isn't just a song; it’s a mood. It’s the sound of a yellow Volkswagen bus breaking down on a highway in the middle of nowhere while a family tries—and fails—to hold it together. Honestly, it’s rare for a single piece of music to define the entire "indie" aesthetic of an era, but Nick Urata and his band managed it.
They didn't do it alone, though.
The track is actually a rework of a song called "How It Ends," but it was adapted specifically for the 2006 film. Working alongside composer Mychael Danna, DeVotchKa brought a dusty, Eastern European-inflected folk sound to a story about a pageant girl in Albuquerque. It felt weird. It felt right. Most people don't realize that the band was relatively obscure before this. They were playing small clubs, blending Romani music, bolero, and punk. Then, suddenly, their melancholic horns were everywhere.
Why The Winner Is by DeVotchKa Sticks in Your Brain
There’s a specific psychological trick happening in this track. It’s written in a way that feels both triumphant and deeply sad. Music theorists might point to the repetitive, cyclical nature of the chord progression. It never quite resolves. It just keeps spinning. This perfectly mirrors the plot of the movie—a family stuck in a loop of their own failures.
You’ve probably noticed how many commercials and trailers tried to rip this sound off in the late 2000s. They wanted that "authentic" feel. But you can't really fake the chemistry DeVotchKa has. The band—Nick Urata, Tom Hagerman, Jeanie Schroder, and Shawn King—uses instruments that shouldn't work in a modern pop context. We're talking accordion, sousaphone, and bouzouki.
Little Miss Sunshine directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris supposedly heard the band on a Los Angeles radio station, KCRW. They were stuck in traffic. They heard the music and knew it was the "voice" of their film. That’s the kind of serendipity you can’t manufacture with a marketing team.
The Contrast of the Sousaphone
Most people think of the tuba or sousaphone as "funny" instruments. They’re for oompah bands or circus clowns. But in The Winner Is by DeVotchKa, the sousaphone provides a somber, grounding weight. It’s the anchor. It represents Richard Hoover’s failed 9-step program and the grandfather’s heroin addiction. It’s heavy. When the strings finally swell over that brass foundation, it feels like a release.
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Breaking Down the Soundtrack Collaboration
It is a bit of a misconception that DeVotchKa wrote the entire score in a vacuum. The credit actually goes to Mychael Danna and DeVotchKa. Danna is a heavy hitter—think Life of Pi or Moneyball. He brought the cinematic structure, but DeVotchKa brought the soul.
The recording process was reportedly quite organic. They weren't sitting in a high-tech studio in London with a 90-piece orchestra. They were capturing the grit. If you listen closely to the track, it isn't "clean." You can hear the breath in the whistle. You can hear the physical resonance of the instruments.
- The Instrumentation: Trumpets that sound like they’re crying.
- The Tempo: A steady, walking pace that never rushes.
- The Emotional Arc: It starts small and ends with a feeling of "we’re going to be okay, even if we lose."
That last point is the kicker. The song is titled "The Winner Is," but the movie is about losers. Beautiful, messy losers. The irony isn't lost on anyone who has actually paid attention to the lyrics of the vocal version ("How It Ends"). It's about the passage of time and the things we leave behind.
The Cultural Ripple Effect
After 2006, the "Indie Folk" explosion happened. You can draw a straight line from DeVotchKa to bands like Beirut or even Mumford & Sons. Everyone wanted that "vintage-global-nomad" vibe. But DeVotchKa was doing it because that’s who they were. They were a Denver band playing Mexican weddings and burlesque shows.
They weren't trying to be trendy.
In fact, the success of The Winner Is by DeVotchKa actually created a bit of a golden cage for the band. People expected them to just be "the Little Miss Sunshine band." But if you go back and listen to their album Una Volta, or the epic How It Ends, you realize they’re much darker and more complex than a quirky movie soundtrack might suggest. They deal with themes of immigration, heartbreak, and the American West.
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A Masterclass in Minimalism
One thing most "experts" get wrong is thinking this song is complex. It’s not. It’s basically a few chords. But the arrangement is everything. It proves that you don't need a wall of sound to create an emotional impact. Sometimes, you just need a guy who can whistle in tune and a woman who knows how to make a sousaphone sound like a funeral march.
The song has been used in countless "Best Of" lists for film scores. It sits up there with Jon Brion’s work on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Yann Tiersen’s Amélie. It defines a specific moment in time when movies started moving away from big, sweeping orchestral scores and toward something more intimate and "homemade."
What Happened to DeVotchKa After?
They didn't disappear. Far from it. They continued to release incredible music, like A Mad and Faithful Telling and This Night Falls Forever. Nick Urata also became a go-to guy for film scoring. He worked on Paddington, Crazy, Stupid, Love, and the Netflix series A Series of Unfortunate Events.
You can hear the DNA of "The Winner Is" in almost everything he touches. There’s always that slight tilt—a melody that feels like it’s from 1920s Prague but also 2020s Los Angeles.
People still find this song on Spotify and YouTube daily. It’s a "comfort" track. It’s what you play when you’ve had a bad day and you need to remind yourself that failing is just part of the process. The song doesn't judge you.
The Technical Side: Why it Sounds Like That
If you’re a musician trying to cover this, you’ll find it’s deceptively tricky. The timing has a "swing" to it that isn't quite on the grid. It’s human.
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The reverb is also key. It sounds like it was recorded in a wooden room. There’s a warmth to the mid-tones that digital plugins often struggle to recreate. It feels tactile. Like you could reach out and touch the bow of the violin.
- The Whistle: Needs to be airy, not piercing.
- The Percussion: Minimalist. Think brushes, not sticks.
- The Brass: Don't overplay. It’s about the long notes.
Honestly, the track is a lesson in restraint. In an era where everything is compressed and loud, The Winner Is by DeVotchKa breathes.
Final Thoughts on a Modern Classic
It’s been nearly two decades since we first saw that yellow bus. The actors have aged, the directors have moved on, but the music remains static. It’s a capsule.
When you listen to the track today, it doesn't feel dated. That’s the hallmark of good art. It doesn't rely on the "sound of the year." It relies on melody and atmosphere. Whether you're a film buff or just someone who likes good folk music, there's no denying the impact of this four-minute piece of music. It taught us that you don't actually have to win to be the winner. You just have to show up.
Next Steps for Deep Diving into DeVotchKa
- Listen to the full album "How It Ends": This is where the core of the soundtrack originated. It’s a much more expansive, operatic experience than the film snippets.
- Watch the Live with the Colorado Symphony version: If you think the studio track is emotional, hearing the band backed by a full orchestra takes the "The Winner Is" motifs to a whole new level of grandiosity.
- Analyze Nick Urata’s later scores: Compare his work on Paddington to the Little Miss Sunshine era to see how he transitioned from "indie band member" to "Hollywood composer" without losing his signature eccentricities.
- Explore the "Balkan Brass" genre: If the horns are what hooked you, look into artists like Goran Bregović or Boban Marković to understand the cultural roots DeVotchKa is pulling from.